Current Awareness in Aging Report No. 543 -- July 1, 2010

CAAR (Current Awareness in Aging Research) is a weekly email report produced by the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that helps researchers keep up to date with the latest developments in the field. For more information, including an archive of back issues and subscription information see:

3. US NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTH STATISTICS: "2009 National Health Interview Survey, Data and Documentation (June 2010, data in self-decompressing [.exe] ASCII format, with documentation and program statements in .pdf and ASCII format, respectively).

4. HEALTH AND RETIREMENT STUDY: The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research HRS announced on Jul. 1, 2010: "A new version of the RAND HRS Data File has been released, replacing all prior versions." For more information see:

6. INTER-UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RESEARCH DATA RELEASE: ICPSR announced the release of the following new datasets that may be of interest to researchers of aging on Jun. 27, 2009.

Note: Some ICPSR studies are available only to ICPSR member institutions. To find out whether your organization is a member, and whether or not it supports ICPSR Direct downloading, see:

9. US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT: "Invalid Prescriber Identifiers on Medicare Part D Drug Claims" (OEI-03-09-00140, June 2010, .pdf format, 18p.).

Abstract:

OIG found that $1.2 billion in Medicare Part D prescription drug claims contained invalid prescriber identifiers in 2007. Invalid identifiers were used on more than 18 million prescription drug claims. These identifiers either (1) were not listed as valid identifiers in the National Provider Identifier (NPI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) number, or Unique Physician Identification Number (UPIN) registry databases or (2) had been deactivated or retired before January 1, 2006.

Part D drug plans must submit an electronic record to CMS for each covered prescription filled for their enrollees. This electronic record, called a prescription drug event (PDE) record, contains drug cost and payment data fields that enable CMS to make payments to plans and oversee the Part D benefit. CMS requires that PDE records contain an identifier for the drug's prescriber. Identifiers that may be used include NPIs, DEA numbers, and UPINs. Each type of prescriber identifier has specific length and format requirements. For 17 percent of the PDE records that contained invalid prescriber identifiers, the identifiers did not conform to length or format specifications. These PDE records represented $213 million in payments by Medicare drug plans and enrollees in 2007.

Our review also revealed that 10 of the nearly 530,000 invalid identifiers accounted for 17 percent of all drug claims with invalid prescriber identifiers in 2007. Medicare Part D plans and enrollees paid pharmacies $237 million in 2007 for drug claims that contained these 10 invalid identifiers. Five of the top ten invalid identifiers appeared on individual claims for very expensive drugs, with payment amounts totaling more than $10,000 per claim. In addition, the majority of PDE records that contained 1 of the top 10 invalid prescriber identifiers were submitted by a single company, which is a large pharmacy benefit manager and mail-order pharmacy.

Prescriber identifiers are valuable Part D program safeguards. These identifiers are the only data on Part D drug claims to indicate that legitimate practitioners have prescribed medications for Medicare enrollees. Based on our findings, we conclude that CMS and Part D plans do not have adequate procedures in place to detect invalid values in the prescriber identifier field. To address this vulnerability, we recommend that CMS conduct periodic reviews to ensure the validity of prescriber identifiers used on PDE records. In addition, we recommend that CMS require Part D plans to institute procedures to (1) identify invalid identifiers in the prescriber identifier field on Part D drug claims and (2) flag for review Part D drug claims that contain invalid identifiers in the prescriber identifier field. CMS concurred with our recommendations.

12. US SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION REPORT: "Earnings and Employment Data for Workers Covered Under Social Security and Medicare," by State and County, 2007" (June 2010, HTML, .pdf and Microsoft Excel format, 479p.).

19. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH ARTICLE: "Total daily change with age equals average lifetime change," by James Vaupel (Vol. 22, Article 36, June 2010, .pdf format, p. 1143-1148). Links to an abstract and full text are available at:

24. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH REPORT: "Health of American Indian and Alaska Native Elders in California," by Delight E. Satter, Steven P. Wallace, Andrea N. Garcia, Lauren M. Smith (June 2010, .pdf format, 32p.). Links to an abstract and full text are available at:

B. "Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differentials in Employer-Sponsored Pensions Before the ERISA Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Labor," by Barbara Butrica and Richard W. Johnson (testimony before the ERISA Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Labor, June 2010, .pdf format, 14p.).

31. AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: "The Crisis in Public Sector Pension Plans: A Blueprint for Reform in New Jersey," by Andrew G. Biggs and Eileen Norcross (No. 10-31, June 2010, .pdf format, 33p.). Links to an abstract and full text are available at:

32. BOSTON COLLEGE CENTER FOR RETIREMENT RESEARCH: "Spousal Health Shocks and the Timing of the Retirement Decision in the Face of Forward-Looking Financial Incentives," by Courtney Harold Van Houtven and Norma B. Coe (WP#2010-7, June 2010, .pdf format, 68p.). Links to an abstract and full text are available at:

33. NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH: "Suburbanization, Demographic Change and the Consequences for School Finance," by David N. Figlio and Deborah Fletcher (w16137, June 2010, .pdf format, 53p.).

Abstract:

The existing literature on the relationship between the share of elderly in a community and the support for local public education has led to mixed results to date. One potential reason behind this is that the share of elderly in a community is endogenous, and it is very difficult to disentangle the effects of individuals aging in place from that of dynamic Tiebout sorting. The point of this paper is to carefully document the degree to which aging in place has occurred in the American suburbs, and to estimate the degree to which it has influenced school finance once the initial settlers of these suburbs were no longer the parents of school-aged children. We hand-match data from the 1950 and 1960 Censuses of Population and Housing to more recent data to link postwar suburban development to later school finance. Using a novel method for identifying the causal effects of aging in place, we find that the share of elderly adults who age in place is negatively related to the level of support for public schooling, and that this is particularly true for school districts in metropolitan areas where the school-aged population is more heavily nonwhite relative to the elderly population.

41. AMEDEO MEDICAL LITERATURE: Note: "AMEDEO has been created to serve the needs of healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, other members of the health professions, and patients and their friends. They can easily access timely, relevant information within their respective fields... All AMEDEO services are free of charge. This policy was made possible thanks to generous unrestricted educational grants provided by AMGEN, Berlex, Eisai, Glaxo Wellcome, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, and Schering AG."

42. INTERNATIONAL LONGEVITY CENTER USA: The Longevity Prescription, The 8 Proven Keys to a Long, Healthy Life, by Robert Butler (2010, 288p., ISBN: 1583333886). More information, including ordering information, is available at:

B. "Subjective Well-being: Advances in Measurement and Applications to Aging (R01)" (RFA-AG-11-003, National Institute on Aging and National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Jun. 22, 2010). For more information see:

49. US SENATE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING HEARING TESTIMONY, PUBLICATION:

A. "Drug Waste and Disposal: When Prescriptions Become Poison," a hearing held Jun. 30, 2010 (.pdf format). In addition to the print testimony, a complete video transcript (running time, approximately 86 minutes) is available at the site. Click on "click here" next to the Flash video icon for link to the transcript.

50. HEALTHCARE.GOV: Launched on Jun. 30, 2010, Healthcare.gov is "a website designed to help you take control of your health care--by putting the power of information at your fingertips. Its the first website to collect both public and private health insurance options across the nation in a single place. Even better, our insurance options finder automatically sorts through this huge catalog of options to help you identify the ones that may be right for you. Other highlights of the site include extensive information about your rights as a consumer, how to navigate the health insurance marketplace, and how the Affordable Care Act can help you--all tailored to you." One of the main subsites of the site concerns health care for seniors.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgement; and in these qualities old age is usually not only not poorer, but is even richer